1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to shape processors and methods for representing shape.
2. Description of the Related Art
So far, as methods for representing the shape of an object in a three-dimensional space, there are two known methods.
One is the polygon mesh method which uses polygons to imitate the outline of an object and describe the shape by the vertices, edges and faces of the polygons used.
The other is the CSG (Constructive Solid Geometry) method which uses reference blocks, such as cuboids, spheres and cylinders, to imitates the shape. In the method the shape is represented as a set of the reference blocks.
In these methods, an object is decomposed into a set of components and the shape of the object is described by specifying the shape of the components and their positions. Thus, some objects may require a lot of computation for their decomposition. And some objects may require a large amount of data to describe the shape of the components and their positions, i.e., to describe their shapes. On the other hand, for example, in the field of chemistry, pharmacy and nano-technology, an efficient method to represent the structure of a polymer is required since the function of a polymer is often determined by its structure.
The present invention aims to reduce the amount of computation and data to represent the shape of an object.